by Mick O'Shea
Mick goes on to say how he's supported Taurus Trakker 'all the way down the line', as he not only produced the group's 2009 single 'Monks, Punks & Drunks', but also plays additional guitar and bass on the title track on their May 2012 follow-up, Building Ten. 'I've played live with them a few times, and if I can make it I'll get on stage with them again,' he enthused. 'Martin is the same as me [about] his music, which is important these days. Both Alison and Martin are great and I love playing with TT.
Martin is several years younger than Mick, but with his having a cousin in The Clash, he was allowed to hang around with the group on occasion. 'The first thing I recall with him back in the Clash days was a football game he organised with the kids from the estate versus The Clash,' Mick revealed. 'He was working on an adventure playground in Camden as a youth worker and put the game together, which was great fun. Joe was in goal with his Elvis T-shirt and worker boots on. Martin still has pictures from that day.'
Taurus Trakker wouldn't be the only ones to benefit from Mick's musical munificence in 2012 as he also provided additional guitar and backing vocals on two tracks – 'Misfits and Lovers' and 'Reboot the Mission' on Glad All Over, the latest album from LA rockers, the Wallflowers, which, although a group in name, basically serves as a vehicle for Bob Dylan's son Jakob's talents.
Following its being premièred at the Transmissions festival in Madrid at the end of June, the Catalonia-born filmmaker Danny Garcia's highly-anticipated new Clash opus, The Rise And Fall Of The Clash, received its inaugural UK screening in Nottingham at the Broadway cinema on 5 September, before finally being aired on The Clash's home turf at the Portobello Film Festival three days later. Although Garcia was predominantly at the helm during the filming process, he was aided and abetted by celluloid Clash stalwarts Don Letts and Dave Mingay.
As the Wagnerian title suggests, the film charts The Clash from the heady heights of the US Combat Rock stadium tour through to the group's inglorious Gotterdammerung three years later. Too young to have seen The Clash in action, Garcia was nevertheless a huge fan, and got his idea for the film after coming across Vince White's book Out Of Control in a local book store in 2008.
Vince, his fellow latter-day Clash sidekicks, Pete Howard and Nick Sheppard, as well as Ray Jordan, Pearl Harbor, Norman Watt-Roy, Viv Albertine, and Jock Scot, all make telling talking-head contributions, yet it's Mick who does the lion's share of the on-screen talking.
'My initial idea was just to focus on those two and a half last years of The Clash, from the minute that Mick gets fired,' Garcia explained to www.musicfilmweb.com's Andy Markowitz on the eve of the Los Angeles screening. 'But looking at it and talking to people like Nick Sheppard, I understood that for people to understand the collapse of the band, you would have to start before, when Bernie rejoins the band.'
Garcia isn't the only one confused as to why Mick, Joe, Paul, and Topper wilfully chose to revise of the group's history in the Westway documentary – not to mention the official Clash book – when a factual account of The Clash#2's short-lived odyssey had already been documented in Marcus Gray's Last Gang In Town? 'That was the official version of events until Joe died,' Garcia continues. I wanted an explanation for me, for the fans, for everybody.'
Speaking with www.clashblog.com's Tim Merrick earlier in the year, Garcia said how he'd run into opposition following his announcement that he intended to make a film focusing solely on The Clash#2 years. 'The idea didn't sit well with some people in high places,' he revealed. 'I received a few calls and emails, but I kept telling these people that I'm a free human being and that they couldn't stop me from telling any story I wanted to tell. I also told them that I bought Cut The Crap back in '86 and I wanted my money back.'
Didn't we all…
♪♪♪
London's Berwick Street – which lies within the heart of Soho – is renowned for its traditional outdoor fruit and veg market, but in years gone by it was also regarded as something of a Mecca for music lovers as it boasted a glut of music emporiums; so much so that it enjoyed the sobriquet, the 'vinyl mile'.
Today's teenagers, of course, prefer to download music onto their MP3 players and iPads rather than trek to Berwick Street and seek them out in Sister Ray, or Reckless Records, or indeed, HMV. Yet whilst Mick had been happy to play his part in this seismic shift in music consumerism by making the Carbon/Silicon canon freely available for MP3 download, he reverted to more traditional methods for the release of a Clash box-set bonanza on in September 2013.
It had been five years since the last official Clash product (Live At Shea Stadium) hit the shelves, but like the fabled late bus, Monday, 9 September saw three more come along with the simultaneous release of two box sets – the thirteen-disc Sound System, the eight-disc 5 Album Studio Set – and a 2xCD best of called The Clash Hits Back. Not only would the box-sets be available via all the usual outlets, but Mick, Paul, and Topper got in on the 'pop-up shop' trend by leasing 73 Berwick Street for a fifteen-day period trading as 'Black Market Clash'.
According to www.clashmusic.com, the ground floor would house rare memorabilia from The Clash's own collection including instruments, stage clothes, rare memorabilia, and original manuscripts, while the first floor sold exclusive merchandise. Alongside this, having struck a deal with Fender, fans would be able to take part in plug & play demo stations, as well as exclusive master classes themed on the group's work. And on the eve of the shop's official opening, Mick, Paul, and Topper were all in attendance at a special VIP gathering.
Working on Sound System had proved therapeutic for the trio as the project had brought the three of them together under the same roof for the first time since Topper's sacking at Paul's basement flat in Oxford Gardens more than three decades earlier. 'It's for us, more than anybody,' Mick revealed. 'It was just an opportunity to do something now to represent the music. I like the idea of the ideas carrying on somehow – like Che Guevara's. It's also a restoration, because the tapes would've rotted soon, so it's just the recorded works, presented as best possible – no different from the complete series of Kojak or Breaking Bad. That's how everyone buys things these days, isn't it?'7
Needless to say, it was Sound System (with eye-catching boom-box style packaging courtesy of Paul) that was perceived to be the jewel in the Triple Crown. Aside from the re-mastered studio albums (sans Cut the Crap), the box-set comprised a further three discs featuring demos, non-album singles, rarities, B-sides. There was also a DVD containing a mixture of promo videos and previously unseen live footage, an owner's manual booklet, reprints of both The Armagideon Times fanzines (as well as a brand-new issue edited by Paul, and a plethora of merchandise such as dog tags, badges, stickers and the obligatory poster.
'The concept of the whole thing is best box set ever,' Mick, who'd overseen the remastering process, told Rolling Stone's Andy Green at the time of the releases. 'Remastering's a really amazing thing. That was the musical point of it all; because there's so much there that you wouldn't have heard before. It was like discovering stuff, because the advances in mastering are so immense since the last time [The Clash catalogue] was remastered in the Nineties. We had to bake the tapes beforehand – the oxide on them is where the music is, so if you don't put them in the oven and bake them, that all falls off, because they're so old.
'Also, they found that since the last time they were remastered, there's actually a bigger playback head now,' he continued. 'So we might have missed music on the edges of the tape. Now we're getting all of it. If you're familiar with the music, you're getting stuff you didn't get before. To me, that's more enjoyable than listening to a bunch of odds and sods.'
Three retrospective releases in one day could be construed as not so much Give 'Em Enough Rope, but rather 'give-us-your-moneyfor-old-rope', but with hitherto unreleased gems such as '1977' and 'London's Burning' from the group's first-ever recording session at Beaconsfield Film School in 1976, and 'Stay Free' 'Jail Guitar Doors', and 'Cheapskates' from The Clash's Lyceum show on 28 De
cember 1978, together with previously unseen footage from the group's 25 May 1977 outing at Sussex University on the accompanying DVD, Christmas had indeed come early for Clash fans young and old.
'There's some great video footage on this set,' Mick explained. 'I watched it and thought, "Bloody hell, that's some energy level! We had a real moment. They say the best time to make an album is when you come off tour, because you have that momentum. And when the four of us came together, we were more than our parts. The same goes for the audience. We were one of the bands that helped break down that barrier between the audience and the group. We broke though that barrier.'7
Even the critics proved surprisingly receptive with Rolling Stone declaring: 'It takes a band as myth-saturated as The Clash to live up to a career-summing box as ambitious as this one. But Joe Strummer and his crew of London gutter-punk romantics fit the bill'
In spite of discovering guitar parts he couldn't remember playing during the remastering process, Mick is adamant that Sound System would serve as The Clash's epitaph. 'I'm not even thinking about any more Clash releases,' he pointedly told Rolling Stone's Andy Green. 'This is it for me, and I say that with an exclamation mark.'
So what does the future hold in store for the hip-pop pioneering punk icon as he approaches his sixtieth birthday milestone? For whilst he's been careful to heed the pitfalls of his putting too many hours in at The Clash coalface, and spends time with his partner Miranda and the girls, and has several non musical pastimes such as going to Loftus Road on match days to watch his beloved Queens Park Rangers, his having been a founding member of 'the only band that matters', the driving force behind Big Audio Dynamite, and his being a major cog in the free music download revolution with Carbon/Silicon, there's little chance of his deciding it time to rest on his laurels any time soon. And as there's no statute of limitations on talent or creativity there's no reason why he should.
Speaking with www2.gibson.com in November 2007, Mick said how he always feels that his best work is yet to come. 'I think it will come tomorrow, or the next day,' he mused. 'And even if it doesn't, I just carry on working. I just go where my heart takes me.'
Mick isn't the first creative soul to allow his heart to rule his head, but perhaps his being a Cancerian means he'll have suffered for his art more than most. Yes, there have been times when he's been lost in the metaphorical supermarket, and people haven't always stood by him as he might have wished, but as an eternal optimist he knows 'great tomorrows lie in wait'…
* * *
* Hillsborough is the home of Sheffield Wednesday FC. (BACK)
NOTES
Chapter One:
1. The Clash.
2. The Clash.
3. The Clash.
4. Time Out, September 2008.
5. The Clash.
6. The Clash.
7. Time Out, September 2008.
8. The Clash.
9. Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clash.
Chapter Two:
1. www.gibson.com, 2006.
2. The Clash.
3. The Clash.
4. Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clash.
5. The Clash.
6. Passion Is A Fashion.
Chapter Three:
1. Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys.
2. Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys.
3. Sabotage Times, December 2011.
4. www.blogs.citypages.com, November 2007.
Chapter Four:
1. Mojo, March 2003
2. The Clash.
3. The Clash: A Visual Documentary
4. The Clash.
5. The Clash.
6. Last Gang In Town.
7. www.gibson.com, 2006.
8. www.gibson.com, 2006.
9. The Clash.
10. www.gibson.com, 2006.
11. www.gibson.com, 2006.
Chapter Five:
1. Punk: An Oral History.
2. Punk: An Oral History.
3. The Clash.
4. Last gang In Town.
5. The Clash.
6. Passion Is A Fashion.
7. The Clash.
8. Passion Is A Fashion.
9. The Clash.
Chapter Six:
1. The Clash.
2. The Clash.
3. Sabotage Times, December 2011.
4. Melody Maker.
5. www.blogs.citypages.com, November 2007.
6. Melody Maker.
7. Melody Maker.
8. NME.
9. NME.
Chapter Seven:
1. The Clash.
2. A Riot Of Our Own.
3. Passion Is A Fashion.
4. Passion Is A Fashion.
5. The Clash.
6. Passion Is A Fashion.
7. Passion Is A Fashion.
8. Sabotage Times, December 2011.
Chapter Eight:
1. www.gibson.com.
2. A Riot Of Our Own.
3. Q magazine's 2001 retrospective.
4. Joe's NME Diary.
5. Q magazine's 2001 retrospective.
6. Q magazine's 2001 retrospective.
7. Route 19 Revisited.
8. Passion Is A Fashion.
Chapter Nine:
1. Passion Is A Fashion.
2. A Riot Of Our Own.
3. The Clash.
4. NME.
5. Route 19 Revisited.
6. Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys.
7. Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys.
Chapter Ten:
1. Passion Is A Fashion.
2. A Riot Of Our Own.
3. The Clash.
4. Passion Is A Fashion.
5. The Clash.
6. The Clash.
7. Passion Is A Fashion.
8. Passion Is A Fashion.
9. Passion Is A Fashion.
10. NME.
11. Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clash.
12. www.blogs.citypages.com, November 2007.
Chapter Eleven:
1. NME.
2. The Clash.
3. Passion Is A Fashion.
4. Passion Is A Fashion.
Chapter Twelve:
1. The Clash.
2. The Clash.
3. www.blogs.citypages.com, November 2007.
4. www.blogs.citypages.com, November 2007.
5. www.gibson.com, 2006.
6. The Clash.
7. Rolling Stone.
8. Rolling Stone.
9. Passion Is A Fashion.
10. Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clash.
11. www.deangoodman.com, 2008.
Chapter Fourteen:
1. www.deangoodman.com, 2008.
2. Return Of The Last Gang In Town.
3. www.deangoodman.com, 2008.
4. Culture Clash.
5. www.deangoodman.com, 2008.
6. Sabotage Times. December 2011.
7. Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clash.
8. www.deangoodman.com, 2008.
9. Culture Clash.
10. www.blogs.citypages.com, November 2007.
Chapter Fifteen:
1. www.deangoodman.com, 2008.
2. The Telegraph. 2013.
3. www.deangoodman.com, 2008.
4. www.philly.news.com, September 1989.
5. www.philly.news.com, September 1989.
6. Chicago Tribune. December 1989.
7. www.deangoodman.com, 2008.
8. www.philly.news.com, September 1989.
9. www.philly.news.com, September 1989.
10. www.deangoodman.com, 2008.
Chapter Seventeen:
1. Pulse magazine.
2. Pulse magazine.
Chapter Eighteen:
1. Passion Is A Fashion.
2. Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clash.
3. Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clas
h.
4. Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clash.
5. Passion Is A Fashion.
6. Joe Strummer and the Legend of The Clash.
7. www.teletext.co.uk, 2007.
8. www.teletext.co.uk, 2007.
9. NME.
10. www.teletext.co.uk, 2007.
11. www.teletext.co.uk, 2007.
12. www.blogs.citypages.com, November 2007.
Chapter Nineteen:
1. popmatters.com.
2. NME.
3. The Quietus.
4. The Quietus.
5. The Telegraph.
Chapter Twenty:
1. Sabotage Times, December 2011.
2. www.louderthanwar.com.
3. Sabotage Times, December 2011.
4. Sabotage Times, December 2011.
5. Sabotage Times, December 2011.
6. The Telegraph.
7. The Telegraph.
A boy with a dream...